


Dedication

by Maldoror_Chant



Series: Duty and Bloodshed: The CP9 Series [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: CP9 - Freeform, Gen, So blood and violence and a rather skewed view of Justice, young killer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 09:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12363174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: Dedicationn 1: complete and wholehearted commitment to a cause.n 2: a ceremony in which an object is dedicated to a goal or purpose. In human history, this has occasionally been done with the spilling of blood.





	Dedication

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Some 7 years before Luffy and co set sail

Kaku leapt from the crenellated wall, bounced sideways off a buttress sixty feet away and vaulted onto a flat roof. Enies Lobby had _great_ buildings. 

The odd phenomenon that kept the Island of Justice eternally illuminated was being upstaged by the rising sun. Dawn stabbed at the skyline, stretching his fleeting shadow over the town until it was longer than the two giants guarding the gate. Kaku smiled as the speed of his trajectory tried to tug off his cap. He'd taken a direct route this morning, a straight line to the station and back to get a first feel of the place, but he couldn't wait to explore and discover the truly exciting detours, the ones that would make this more than just a warm-up.

He made his way up the Courthouse's façade, using the conservative frontispiece in a way its builders hadn't intended, and waved at a couple of gaping guards on a balcony. Shortly after his arrival yesterday, Kaku had asked a startled garrison commander for permission to do his daily run around the heavily fortified island. Kaku had expected to be denied, but the officer's attitude gave him the impression that not many people said 'no' to CP9 agents around here. Once he'd figured out what it was that Kaku was actually asking, the commander had simply said he'd notify the troops ASAP so that nobody would try to stop the young man or open fire. Hopefully everybody had gotten the memo. If not, that'd certainly make his morning run all the more stimulating.

He paused at the top of the Courthouse and glanced around his new home. Then he threw himself into the gaping void. Falling- falling-...Pure exhilaration. 

_Geppou!_

Three steps into nothing but wind and waterfall plumes, then Kaku landed with a wash of displaced air at the edge of the training area built off of the Tower of Justice. He glanced at his watch, but was distracted from noting his time by a presence. 

"Hello," he said politely. This had to be one of Kaku's new colleagues; this practice area was off-limits to all other personnel.

The other man ignored both his arrival and his greeting. He was sitting on a workout bench, cinching a long strap around his forearm, wrist and knuckles, no doubt to practice his punches on the specially reinforced training dummies behind him. The only other agent Kaku had met so far was Blueno, a large, quiet man several years his senior who resided in an adjacent room. Presumably Kaku would get to know the other members of the organization if and when he ran into them; he'd gathered from the little he'd seen of it already that CP9 wasn't big on socializing.

"My name is Kaku. I'm the latest recruit." 

The man didn't even glance up. Not a morning person...or maybe just taciturn by nature. Kaku put him in his mid-twenties, with a long face, dark eyes and a firm mouth that didn't look built for smiling - at least, not pleasantly. An odd curve to his eyebrows gave his expression a faintly predatory turn. Black hair fell to his shoulders. Kaku turned away, absently lifting his cap by the peak to flatten out his own cropped cut; it would be even curlier than the stranger's, except he'd thought it would be a bit more, well, professional to get a haircut before coming here. 

Stretching as he walked, he made his way over to the sports bag he'd dropped earlier. He extracted his water bottle, tipped it up- an unexpected presence in his peripheral vision made him tense. The man was now standing ten feet away, hands in the pockets of his black trainers, scrutinizing him. Kaku managed to swallow the water the right way around, though he'd been startled...and he'd been keeping his ears and senses peeled, too. This fellow certainly lived up to the 'covert' part of their job description.

Kaku took another swallow of water before putting it away. As far as he was concerned, it was up to the other man to speak now; he'd done his bit to be polite. Seeing that this was one of less than a dozen people who'd be closer to Kaku than family for the rest of his remaining lifespan, a returned introduction would be nice...but he had the feeling he was about to be disappointed. 

"How old are you?" The man's voice was oddly inflectionless. Not unpleasant, but it put Kaku ever so slightly on edge for reasons he couldn't pin down. 

"I get that question all the time." Kaku had picked up his unusual speech pattern from the steely old CP7 agent who had been his mentor-cum-foster-father through the ranks, and he'd never mixed with enough people his own age to shake it. "I'm sixteen. By a few weeks."

Something in the other's mien told him it wasn't his speech pattern that the man was focusing on.

"Sixteen. And you think you're good enough to be in CP9?" was the next question, without enough emphasis anywhere to give Kaku a clue as to how to take it.

Kaku managed to catch the frown before it made it onto his face. Getting offended would make him look immature, and would rather prove the man's point. "There is not much I can do about my age except wait it out. The Cipher Pol hierarchy gave their go ahead for my posting, though."

He had the faint intuition that his good-natured answer and level behavior intrigued the man, whereas his speech mannerism and his habit of jumping off buildings hadn't raised any interest. 

Kaku waited to see if that was the end of it, or the prelude to some stupid initiation of the painful kind. He'd heard there were people like that in every outfit. When nothing else was forthcoming, he turned towards the training machines. Either that would provoke a response, or he'd be able to get some work in. He brought out the weights and arranged them in increasing order. The man behind him said nothing, but Kaku had sat through that lecture. Getting People To Talk 101. Say nothing, and fools will fill the silence with information. Kaku had been trained to listen, not to babble.

"You really are young if you think other people in Cipher Pol know what it takes to be in this agency," the man eventually said. "Now one of us is going to have to team up with a teenager."

"I'll concede that," Kaku said cheerfully as he put down the last weight on the stack and reached for the wingnuts, his back never fully turned. "Though I'm hardly exceptional, right? I'm already three years older than our youngest recruit ever."

"You think you're on that level?" They both knew who Kaku was referring to, of course; everybody who made it into the ranks of CP9 knew Rob Lucci and his history. 

"I wouldn't say that, since it took me three more years of training to get in." Kaku straightened and turned around. "If you'll excuse me, I'd like to finish my workout. I have a meeting at ten." Maybe this would bring matters to a head.

"Yes," the stranger said, though he didn't nod. Kaku had yet to see him make any superfluous movements. "Director Spandam will be giving you a group assignment and possibly a mission, depending on who he teams you with." 

"Oh-"

The Rankyaku slammed into Kaku's Tekkai. He was crouched, arms up on instinct, his heels digging into the matting of the training area. Behind him, the weight stand crunched and then collapsed.

A few things were immediately sorted out with that very first blow. There had been absolutely no warning, but his attacker had intended it as no more than a probe, or maybe even just a heads-up. Kaku had felt potential coiled there that hadn't been unleashed, potential that made him dizzy with the level it achieved. This...was no bully. This man was a dedicated and extremely deadly fighter. 

His attacker was still standing in the middle of the room as if he'd never moved, both feet planted once more on the matting. "You don't let your guard down," he said, a plain statement of fact rather than approbation.

"No, I don't. Who are you?" Kaku lowered his arms cautiously. The stranger was tall, but not bulky, wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt cut low off chest and shoulders, sleek and sinewy rather than overly muscled. Such power in that frame, though...

The stranger finally took his hands out of his pockets. A flick of fingers beckoned Kaku forward. "I'm someone who's offering to give you a workout before your meeting."

"Thank you," Kaku replied without any irony, already moving forward and trying to keep his eagerness under control before it tripped him up. Kaku had joined CP9 because he believed in peace and justice, he believed in the government which had raised him and given him purpose, and he was ready to sacrifice everything, even his soul, to the cause...But the _other_ reason he'd joined was because he'd enjoyed fighting from the moment he'd been taught his first form, he'd become exceedingly good at it, and in these ranks he would meet, match and measure himself against men like this.

The as-yet-still-unintroduced agent was tying his hair back into a loose ponytail, hands busy. Kaku stopped as if he was going to politely wait for his opponent to finish- and shot out a kick that would have folded a normal man in two. One lesson he'd not enjoyed as much, but which he'd learned anyway: CP9 wasn't about 'fair', it was about doing the job whatever the means. If that introduction earlier was any indication, this man certainly knew the rules. 

The stranger finished tying his hair as if he hadn't noticed the strike breaking harmlessly across his abs. Kaku nodded to himself and darted forward.

The next ten minutes were exciting and intense. And also painful. The older agent took Kaku down with one arm, in essence, and though he didn't do anywhere near as much damage as he undoubtedly could have, he didn't bother to pull his punches much either. Then again, Kaku hadn't learned Tekkai because he liked the name. For his part, he didn't land any significant blows, but he rapidly concluded that holding out ten minutes against this man was already pretty good in and of itself. 

His back hit the matting with the kind of momentum that made padding useless. Kaku grunted, ready to roll and dodge the next strike - his opponent wasn't the kind to let people get back up if he didn't feel like it. But the other man stepped back.

"That’s enough for now." Kaku's new friend shoved back the dark locks that had spilled down his forehead. "You'll do."

"Do?" Kaku levered himself into sitting position, forcing himself to move smoothly instead of going 'ouch'.

"I need a little brother."

Kaku's face must have been a picture. "I beg your pardon?" 

"For an infiltration," the man supplied, with a sniff of scorn for the young agent's confusion. True, there wasn't much else he could have meant. "We don't look much alike, but if you smile like you did earlier, they'll think you're a kid and that you tripped the alarm by mistake. It will give us those five extra minutes to secure the place and make sure nobody gets out."

"Oh, I see-"

"You've killed before. How many?"

Kaku blinked at the hairpin turn in the conversation, but he answered without pause, without arrogance, without feeling. "Three."

There was a faint nod, approval of that tone rather than the number of targets eliminated during his evaluation mission, because the man added, "Not many, but we'll soon change that. It will give you more edge." He turned and headed towards the door. "Forget that meeting with Director Spandam. I'll take care of it. Meet me at the train station in an hour."

Kaku paused in brushing himself off. "What? But I can't-..."

The man was walking away, loosening his ponytail with a couple of jerks. The gesture drew Kaku's attention to some of the massive scars visible around the edges of the low-cut sleeveless top.

"Yes sir," Kaku said faintly. He felt like he'd been kicked all over again. "Um- it'll be an honor-"

"No, it won't." Rob Lucci stopped in the doorway. "We have no honor. We have our duty, and soon, we'll have bloodshed. Honor can go hang."

He still looked older than the twenty years he must be, but now he was showing a bit of the steel beneath the mask. Stupid, Kaku told himself, frozen by the sense of aura, of presence suddenly revealed. Stupid to have assumed someone like this would be immediately recognizable when Lucci did have to go on missions of discreet assassination on a regular basis; of course he knew how to hide himself from people's perceptions and look somewhat harmless. 

The black eyes scrutinized him, inch by slow inch. It was like getting autopsied without the benefit of being dead first. Then the aura faded a bit, back to something that could be handled. The corner of Lucci's mouth curled up, confirming Kaku's earlier intuition; he did know how to smile, just not pleasantly. "Honor...You're a queer one. But you could be good once you get some experience. We'll see."

Then the door closed. Kaku leaned forward, bracing his hands on his thighs, trying to get his heartbeat back to normal. We'll see? What did that mean? It was a given that Kaku's performance on this assignment would be under scrutiny. Maybe Lucci meant that if the new agent did well on this upcoming mission, they might be on the same team again in the future. 

So no pressure, right?

Kaku's sharp grin turned into a grimace as he straightened up, bruises pulling. He headed towards the room he'd been billeted to less than a day ago, to grab some essentials before heading towards the station. This promised to be interesting. 

They transferred from the train to a fast cutter ship, thirty-nine hours of travel without a break to get them to where they were going. During the entire trip, Lucci talked to him a total of three times; to give him details on the target, the information that the members of Lucci's previous team were all dead, and an order to stop calling him 'sir'.

This promised to be very interesting indeed.

 

\---

 

Kaku found a small bucket of dirty water, forgotten in the hold of the ship they were stowing away on. He took out the mop and washed his hands in the dregs. The disadvantage of Shigan was that it left him gummed up with blood to the elbow. Beyond that, he'd stayed clean. 

He moved away from the sudsy water to let the other man use it if he wanted to. Rob Lucci was leaning against a stanchion, eyes closed as if meditating, and made no move. His hands were just as gory, and in addition a line like a bloody tear ran down his left cheek to a large smear on his chest. 

Kaku eventually had to fish out his small boot-knife to get rid of the mess embedded beneath his fingernails. This was why he preferred swords, but he knew he'd rarely have the option to use them. Not discreet enough. He'd never have gotten near this target with anything larger than a letter opener, that was certain. 

He hadn't asked why the man had deserved to die, or why the government had judged his existence an unacceptable threat. It wasn't Kaku's place to question. In his - admittedly limited - experience, nobody with a perfectly clear conscience surrounded himself with that kind of protection, but the man could have been as innocent as a lamb and it wouldn't have mattered. They were CP9. This was their prerogative and their duty. In view of that, it served no purpose to know unless it impacted on their mission.

Lucci must have decided that Kaku did not need to know, or maybe he didn't know either. In any case, he made no mention of it while outlining the plan, which had been meticulous. Rob Lucci could have taken down the entire compound single-handedly, but instead he'd formulated a strategy which fully utilized both their abilities to maximize their chances of success and eliminate any possibility of a random event letting the target slip away. It hadn't been an ego trip, it had been the height of professionalism, and Kaku had to admit he'd been impressed.

It'd also been bloody, since they'd been authorized to remove all of the mercenaries and guards hired by the target as well as the target himself. When Lucci had said they'd soon change Kaku's body count, he'd meant _now_. 

Kaku had kept a tally, since it seemed he was expected to. He'd been acquainted with these sorts of tallies his entire life. They were pinned on bulletin boards, rumored in the academy halls or discussed with his foster-father over supper. A number of Marines killed in raid today; a number of civilian casualties; a number of pirates hanged. It was both freeing and a little disheartening to think that his personal contribution could mount into triple digits - it might well do so, if he was good enough - and it'd be almost nothing compared to the toll of this Age of Pirates. At least his targets weren't random, and their deaths might actually make a difference somewhere down the line. Kaku had been told, and had never had any doubt, that this made the blood beneath his fingernails justified. It's what made the number in his head just one more number. Some of the civilians he was protecting would undoubtedly say he had his head wired the wrong way around. Kaku thought they were probably right, and that he was exactly what this era needed. The Age of Pirates needed a few men on the side of Justice who didn't care about numbers.

The Cipher Pol advisory board had agreed, since they'd approved his posting a couple of years earlier than they normally would, once his physical abilities reached the appropriate level. It occurred to him those same advisers had rubber-stamped the mission that had sent a thirteen-year old Lucci to kill hundreds of people seven years ago. That must have been a colorful report...

During the hit, Lucci had offered him no encouragements, instructions or pointers on how to improve. Good. Kaku was not looking for another mentor; he'd shape himself on his own from here on out. Lucci had treated him like a colleague the entire time, and considering the kind of plan he'd put into action, if Kaku hadn't been good enough, he'd have been dead before morning and good riddance. In the end, Lucci said only one thing, once the target had been eliminated and they'd extracted themselves from the situation.

"Acceptable."

Kaku had been with him for fifty-six straight hours by that time, long enough to guess that this was the epitome of a compliment for Lucci. In fact, it was on the verge of being condescending, and probably intended that way. That didn't bother Kaku. He'd already decided that he would get an accolade out of this man one day, and on that day Rob Lucci would mean it. 

Their hidden corner of the hold smelled like a slaughterhouse, filled with thuds as sailors walked to and fro above their heads. They'd sneak out of here tomorrow when they docked at the next island, and it was bound to get constraining long before that, but it was necessary. If the two agents were discovered, it would lead to more bloodshed. They'd been ordered to maintain absolute secrecy on this mission and that meant no witnesses. 

Kaku's teammate had yet to speak, or even move. Kaku found that he didn’t mind. In the confined space, he could sense a faint trace of _chi_ that would normally be concealed. It tasted like copper and felt calm and satisfied. Which would be nice, except that 'sated' was the word that kept coming to Kaku's mind, along with 'purring' for some bizarre reason he couldn't begin to puzzle out...He found that he didn't mind that either. He inspected his fingernails and then wiped the stained boot-knife on the mop. All clean, though the smell of blood lingered. Kaku sat back against the wooden bulkhead, absently rubbing his hands against his slacks and the hardened, trained muscles beneath, and closed his eyes. 

He had the sudden intuition, or maybe it was confirmation, that he had the best job in the world.


End file.
